1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
In recent years there has been increasing concern with respect to air pollutants being spread into the atmosphere, both thermal and particulate, by industrial smoke stacks and a prime means of eliminating pollutants is by utilization of spray nozzles as a means of scrubbing the stack discharge. The ability of the spray nozzle to accomplish this resides in the capacity of the nozzle to increase the surface area of sprayed liquid to maximize the contact of the liquid with the pollutants, or to effect and facilitate maximum heat transfer. This is achieved by producing spray particles and the finer the particles the greater will be the surface area per unit volume of liquid sprayed from the nozzle.
Numerous spray nozzle designs are available in the prior art and represent the most versatile tools available to industry and agriculture that may be found today. The uses of such nozzles vary widely from crop spraying to snow making, to high impact washing, or gas scrubbing, or stack cooling, for example and these are but very few of the many uses to which such nozzles are related. The use of spray nozzles for various purposes is constantly growing and creates an ever increasing need for the energy required to operate the nozzles.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
The production of fine spray particles in prior practices has been by forcing the liquid through small slots, or orifices, at sufficiently high pressure to impart a swirling action, or turbulence to the liquid, to cause it to atomize into fine spray particles upon exiting from the nozzle. Another nozzle commonly used for atomizing, utilizes high pressure compressed air for the purpose of providing the mechanical energy to break up the particles and facilitate atomization, which is usually accomplished by directly impinging the air stream on the liquid. Both such methods in practice are uneconomical in practice and very expensive, because large air compressors must be used and high pressure pumps of great capacity must be utilized in order to afford the capacities that are required for the efficient and effective scrubbing and cooling of the stack gases.